


in the dark

by Anonymous



Category: Invader Zim
Genre: Background Relationships, Gen, Implied/Referenced Incest, Implied/Referenced Self-Harm, Murder, Night Terrors, cloning
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-03-09
Updated: 2020-03-09
Packaged: 2021-03-01 02:27:02
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,793
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23077771
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/
Summary: twisted invader zim drabble that will never have completion
Kudos: 9
Collections: Anonymous





	in the dark

Dib was shaken from sleep, Zim standing over him. “Your sister sits upon my couch,” he said, a strange note in the alien’s voice. Dib reached out and patted around for his glasses.

“What time is it?” He began to sit up, but Zim held him by the shoulder.

“Something is wrong with her,” and Dib decided Zim was being suspicious, rather than concerned. It's Irken nature.

+

“Gaz?” Dib said upon entering the living room. Gaz sat exactly where Zim said she was and was definitely correct in his observation; when she looked at him, her eyes were wide and manic. Her hair was wet. Her lip trembled. She clutched her backpack-like purse in her lap, knuckles white. Dib was alert instantly. “Gaz, what happened?”

She glanced behind him and Dib followed her gaze to Zim. The Irken narrowed his eyes.

“What?”

“Give us a minute?” he asked.

Zim’s red eyes squinted at him further and his thin arms crossed with heavy defiance. “You don't smell  _ that vile stench _ Dib-stink? It's coming from _ her bag _ .” He gestured full body toward Gaz.

Was the alien talking nonsense? Dib raised his eyebrow and made a shooing motion with his hand. “I don't get what you're saying, go away.”

“You can smell it?” Gaz whispered, sounding terrified and… almost childlike. Dib whipped his head around to stare at her; he's never heard her so breakable before. Her gaze was locked on Zim, whose expression hardened. Her grip tightened to near tearing point on her purse.

“Irkens are gifted with heightened senses  _ much more _ superior than you lowly,  _ primitive _ humans, a bit of  _ blood _ cannot hide in  _ my _ presence so  _ my _ presence will stay where I  _ sense _ danger.”

His ears were ringing. “Blood…?”

Gaz’s attention snapped right back at him. Her mouth opened and closed a few times, tears forming in her eyes.

Dib rushed across the room and knelt before her, analysing her for injury. He gently pried her right hand off the bag to check her wrist, but there was nothing but her scars. “Where are you hurt? Gaz, are you bleeding somewhere?”

The question was apparently too much. She let out a sob, then a wail.

“I-I killed Dad,” his little sister finally cried out. There was a long moment of silence only filled by her crying getting louder. Dib sat, stunned, as Gaz ripped open her purse and dumped the contents out onto the floor next to him. Something heavy tumbled out, a clawed hammer, still slick with dark blood.

A chunk of tissue with black hair was stuck in the claws. Dib felt dizzy looking at it. That was his dad’s blood. His dad’s hair. Probably his dad’s brain matter.

He threw up bile.

“Don’t be a dysfunctional smeet,” the alien said without heat, appearing beside him. Dib’s head spun trying to focus on Zim, realising he was on the floor. Did he black out for a second? Gaz wasn’t in the room anymore, and neither was the hammer, thankfully.

“Where--!” He sat up too quickly and his vision greyed around the edges. Zim sighed and pushed him back down. “Hell, did I really pass out at the sight of---” More bile rushed up his throat again unexpectedly at the mere thought  _ of his father's blood _ .

Zim sat himself on the floor and pulled Dib’s head into his lap. He clawed his fingers through his hair, a rare and tender action for the alien, and usually only for Dib’s benefit; Zim wasn't one for consoling, not with a severe lack of empathy. The alien would try to comfort his human pet when an outside source stressed him.

Dib’s hair scythe wound around Zim’s fingers to the point of flopping. Slowly, Dib released his tension and turned his eyes up at Zim, waiting. It was still moments longer before the Irken said anything.

“Zim took your sister below when you disgraced yourself,” the alien said soft between them. “She was inconsolable. I locked her in the safe chamber with her smelly weapon.” Dib’s initial response was to immediately rescue Gaz from that room, a mental institution’s padded room lookalike. Dib jumped when Zim began trailing his fingers around his neck and shoulders, digging into joints to force him to relax again. “She is gassed and resting.”

Dib grimaced. “That doesn't make it sound better.”

“Zim isn't looking for ‘ _ better’  _ and Zim doesn't care for her well being. She murdered your fathership,” the alien tossed out callously. “Something happened.”

The human sucked in a shaky breath and held it until his vision fuzzed. He let it go with some tears.

His father was dead.

His sister killed their father.

Gaz, tough exterior with a soft spot saved only for family and pizza and games, removed their last parent from existence with her own hands.

“Yeah,” Dib croaked. “Something bad.”

+

With a little argument between themselves about their level of safety within Gaz’s presence, Dib settled with Zim outside the padded chamber. Dib hated the room; it was too much like the solitary confinement cells in the institutions he stayed in. The Irken first created it as a strange safe-space zone when the alien went through a fear of everything phase. Then, it showed extraordinary use when Gir was majorly,  _ majorly  _ malfunctioning.

The safe room was specially designed with electromagnets and vital monitoring systems.

There was a soft hissing sound, the chamber filling and sustaining a certain percentage of a laughing gas and chloroform mixture. Zim manned the controls, turning off the chemical release and vacuuming out the remains. 

Dib thumped his large forehead against the face window on the door. “Gaz,” he said, tone raised. “Hey, sis.”

She slowly blinked herself to awareness. Slowly, she turned her head toward him, welled tears spilling.

“Remember when we were in, like, middle school,” Gaz hiccuped, mirthless irony laced, “and we joked about you being dad’s little clone? 

“Test tube baby, born from spit and jizz,” Dib recalled, but could also remember when Gaz declared it not funny any longer and decided to pick on Dib in another way. Beside him, the Irken said under his breath,  _ “You do know it doesn't really work like that, dumb Dib?” _ The human brother carried on cautiously, “Did you find something out?”

“You weren't the clone,” she said forcefully.

Dib garbled, his genius mind making connections. “Th-then-- You--"

“And I wasn't Dad’s clone.” Dib felt as though he swallowed his tongue, eyes widening like saucers. He understood straightaway; she meant their mom. Gaz took in his expression and confirmed his suspicions with a nod. “...there’s a lot more to it.”

+

Dib set his empty glass on the table and looked at the open basement door. The door that was normally shut led down to Dad’s laboratory. He stood at the top of the stairs and gazed down into the dark depths; he could hear whirring and other machines of science at work. Dib descened.

It took longer or no time at all to reach the bottom of the stairs. The technologic-glaring-blue light coming from inside the lab made him momentarily blind. His presence didn’t go unnoticed: his dad called his attention, excited to share the inventions of REAL SCIENCE. “Ah, there you are, son! Come look!”

He does as told, and immediately regretted it.

While Dib was looking at the examination table, he was also lying upon it. The double’s eyes were open, staring blankly to the ceiling above, mouth slack open. IVs, monitors, and non-medical machines stuck in the second-Dib’s arms, chest, and across his forehead.

“Isn't it wonderful?” his father asked, clapping a heavy hand on his shoulder. “This clone will be able to do anything you and I can do, including cognitive function and act independently through its own decision making. I'm sure it'll blend right into society, and produce its own genes! It's a scientific breakthrough, son! The missing link between humankind and like-creations!”

“I-it looks like me…”

“You are my son after all, Dib! Be proud, your face will enter science like never before!”

“ _ No _ ,” whispered Dib, horrified. “This isn’t my history.”

“I suppose it isn’t,” the monster of a human responded. His glove clawed hands stroked down the clone’s face, which started to shimmer like a dysfunctioning hologram. Gaz’s image replaced Dib’s upon the cold, aluminum table.

“She looks  _ just _ like your mother.” His hand didn't quit its stroking. Dib didn't like the implication.

“St-stop it,” he said quietly.

“She may be your sister now,” the monster continued, tone shifting, “but I can make you more sisters!” Listening to him speak about conditioning the lab-created life toward a perverse way of living was sickening. That was Dib's  _ sister _ , NOW.

Dib glanced around and saw a surgeon's table close by, all the sterile tools glinting on top. He thought of grabbing the scalpel, then decided against it. Not because Dib changed his mind, no. Dib wanted a better weapon.

A toolbox on the floor caught his eye, a clawed hammer jutting out… He slid over while the creature with his father's name was distracted by the clone on the table. He grasped the handle in his hand, stalked behind the true predator, and raised his weapon high.

_ That was his fucking sister. _

“Mary!” a tiny voice squeaked from the lifeless form on the ground.

He was in a dream.  _ He was dreaming _ . 

Nightmares happened more frequently than the good dreams. So frequent even a strange, off-kiltered when-you-wake dream was a good dream to Dib. A good  _ sleep _ was no dreams at all. The nightmares happened so often Dib learned how to realise when he was dreaming; he couldn’t change the story, but if he told his subconsciousness he was asleep he would be able to wake without trouble. Night terrors, however, gave him trouble, no matter how aware of the fantasy around him.

G.I.R. squeezed his cheeks and booped his nose until Dib woke sufficiently enough for the garbage bot.

“Big head Mary! Master told me to escort you down the long stairs!”

“Down…?” Dib sat up too quick, his glasses almost flying off his face. He fell asleep downstairs, to be with Gaz, but now he rested on the couch in front of the television.

G.I.R. pulled his hand. “Can I has a piggyback? A piggy back? My piggy!” And without waiting for an actual response, or a piggyback, the malfunctioning unit squealed and ran away with its arms in the air.

Dib dragged himself to his feet and activated the wall elevator.

+

Gaz was allowed from the chamber, and the three of them sat around a lab table, steaming twin cups of coffee in the siblings' hands.

“You will need help hiding the body,” said Zim. “Zim will assist.”


End file.
